


Beyond Love

by allredpen



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Watcher Entertainment
Genre: Fight 'n Fuck, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, M/M, Oral Sex, Resolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:20:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24224968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allredpen/pseuds/allredpen
Summary: “I think I specifically asked you to stop pushing me.” Shane’s voice was quiet and deadly and Ryan swallowed against a flood of saliva.There was a flush that started high on Shane’s cheekbones and spread across the bridge of his nose, and a bead of sweat trickled down his jaw and Ryan was thinking he might lick it off.-Ryan’s only asking for a little faith.
Relationships: Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej
Comments: 54
Kudos: 430
Collections: I Love You May, The Ghosts Are Watching





	Beyond Love

**Author's Note:**

> This work was written for the [Skeptic Believer Book club's](https://skepticbeliever-bookclub.tumblr.com/) I Love You May event, which in turn was inspired by the Very Good 3rd episode of Spooky Small Talk. 
> 
> I owe my life to [Catt/Drunkkenobi's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/drunkkenobi) spreadsheet of shoot dates etc surrounding this episode. I referenced it 500 times, and I would have drowned without it.
> 
> Title is from the Beach House song of the same name.

Ryan’s mom had always told him to hold his temper, lest it get the better of him, and normally Ryan tried to live by that. Sure, he could be changeable, maybe every now and then he let a bad mood creep into his interactions, let a vibe ruin his whole day. He’d never been able to say they’d changed the course of his entire life before. Not until this night, in his kitchen.

It was at an early Watcher meeting, long before they were ready to go public, and they were once again crowded around Ryan’s kitchen table, at probably their third such meeting of the week. 

They’d been working on the Spooky Small Talk run sheet all night- him, Steven, Shane. All three bent over a crappy miniature whiteboard Steven had picked up on the way over. Beer bottles and plastic containers of half-eaten dumplings swept aside to make room as they pored over the schedule.

“Okay, no,” Ryan said, and he rubbed a hand through the writing on the whiteboard for the nth time that night, his thumb and wrist covered in green marker. He’d stopped bothering to use the provided eraser two hours ago. “That doesn’t leave us enough time to shoot B-roll.”

Ryan felt the anxiety in his throat. Between permissions from Knotts, shoot timing, guest wrangling, and physically getting their equipment through a _haunted maze_ , this show had become a leviathan. 

“I think each interview is going to have to be one take,” Ryan said, and dropped his head onto his folded arms. 

From across the table, Shane heaved a sigh, “It’s too hard. It’s too complicated, the time-frames are too tight. I just can’t see how you could possibly fit so many guests in one morning, not without...” He trailed off, and tipped the dregs of a beer into his mouth. 

Ryan’s hackles were up instantly, “Without…? Go ahead, bud, finish the thought. Without me fucking something up, right?”

Shane set the beer bottle on the counter with a definitive clank; this was a familiar dance for them. 

“You think I’m gonna fuck this up,” Ryan continued. “And leave us short a pilot.”

Shane just tipped his head back all the way back and raised his hands in a kind of exaggerated eyeroll- _cum_ -shrug. They’d had this conversation before, over and again, about the tight turnaround on Spooky Small Talk, the complexity of its production, the incredible stress of the entire project. 

“I didn’t say that,” Shane said, addressing the ceiling, forcing a laugh that fooled exactly no one into thinking this was still the normal light and breezy ribbing they were used to. Ryan gripped the marker in his hand tightly and swallowed against the acrid surge of ire that bubbled up from his stomach. 

“What _are_ you saying then, dude?” 

The thing about it was, Ryan knew he was being sensitive, knew he was dropping a flash bang in his own kitchen, ratcheting up the tension, making Steven uncomfortable. He couldn’t help it; the part of him that couldn’t leave well enough alone was howling for blood. 

“No, come on Shane, tell me what you really think about it. Tell me again how my show is _‘too risky’_ and _‘too complex’_ for the first round, but a-a fucking _puppet-_ ” Ryan cut himself off, skidding to a stop on the edge of a precipice of his own making.

“Okay,” Steven had been quiet for an argument he had already observed many times over, but now he tapped two thin knuckles on the counter, ever the referee. “I think perhaps I’ll call time on the meeting for tonight.”

Ryan threw his hands up and pushed away from the counter. Steven was right, Ryan knew he was right about cutting this off before it could turn into a fight; they hadn’t even made any productive progress on the run sheet for an hour. Still, as Ryan turned to the fridge and pretended to busy himself in the contents—briskly moving an expired half-empty pesto jar from the top shelf to the lower and back again—he didn’t want to be mature about it. He wanted to get into a screaming match, take Shane by the shoulders and shake him until he admitted that he was being cagey, until he spilled what he really thought. 

But sure, for the sake of harmony, for the sake of the company, Ryan would admit that exactly now was the time to wrap it up, before he allowed himself to tell Shane just what he thought about the faux concern he liked to employ during these arguments. 

So, Ryan let Steven pack up, let them both put their laptops away, winding and stowing their chargers, shuffling papers. Shane moved around the room with his head ducked, avoiding eye contact that Ryan wasn’t seeking anyway. 

Ryan lingered in his kitchen as Steven muttered a farewell and Shane shoved his feet into his shoes without bothering with the laces, and Ryan’s back was turned when the door clicked shut with finality. 

_Whatever, fuck him._ Ryan thought. He should find a distraction until the urge to throw something passed. 

5 full minutes later, however, Ryan was still standing over his kitchen table with his hands braced on the counter, framing his phone. He’d typed a message out to Steven and Shane in the group chat, something very professional, apologetic, something to ease the tension. 

It was a touch of: 

_hey guys i’m sorry bout tonight-_

along with a splash of:

_i’ve been super stressed,_

and of course: 

_thanks for being patient with me._

Et voila—a completely disingenuous message that went counter to the irritation that vibrated through Ryan’s body at the very thought of Shane’s extremely maddening face and voice and entire being. 

Ryan’s hand hovered over the send button. 

Except, _except…_ this was fucked. _Except_ Ryan was always making amends and letting Shane slink out of these situations, even when they weren’t his fault. Ryan thumbed out of the group chat and into his message stream with Shane.

_i didn’t think it needed to be said, but when we started this company i did it on faith that you would be straight with me._

_so._

_idk. if you think my ideas are shit maybe you could just tell me_

Ryan hit send before he had a chance to reconsider, switched his phone to flight mode, and spun around to start on the dishes that were piling. He washed one glass three times, and basked in the self-loathing that crawled up his spine. 

When the knock at his door came a few minutes later Ryan pretended to feel surprised, as if he hadn’t been fishing for exactly this when he’d sent that text. Still, he thought about ignoring it, gave it a minute until the knocking turned to hammering, and Ryan—gloves on, and sponge still in hand—wrenched the door open to find Shane standing there like the worst kind of cryptid. (The kind that called Ryan on his bullshit and lumbered inside with his disheveled hair and glasses too tall and _too much._ )

Shane walked past Ryan without a word and settled back into the seat he’d occupied all night. 

“Okay, so, go ahead,” He said with a wave of his hand, dropping his bag and leaning into the seatback. 

Ryan stomped back to the sink and flung the sponge down—it had much less dramatic effect than he’d hoped. 

“‘Go ahead’? Hey, you barged into my house.” 

It was Shane’s turn to narrow his eyes. Ryan’s spiteful brain crowed, delighted; _Make him use his fucking words._

“You know what I’m talking about. You’re pissed.” Shane ran his hands through his hair. The gesture made Ryan want to kick something. “So, go ahead, Ryan. Let me have it.”

“How’d you get back so fast?”

Shane crossed his arms high on his chest, palms tucked into armpits. “I was still downstairs. Cancelled the Lyft.”

When silence fell, Ryan let it; he leaned back against the sink and let himself hold Shane’s perceptive gaze. The tension inched towards excruciating, and Ryan relished it, though he was the one to break it, ultimately. 

“I just want to know what you’re actually saying is wrong with my show-”

“I’m _not-_ I’ve said nothing-”

“That’s the problem! You say nothing-”

“-You’ve obviously already decided I’m the villain, and you’re some victim-”

“Oh! That’s fucking rich, Shane-”

“I’m actually just trying to look out for all of us-”

“Don’t make out like you have some kind of brilliant insight-”

“I didn’t say that either, stop putting words in my mouth.”

“Well, _Shane._ ” Ryan’s hands curled into fists, which had less impact than he’d hoped, given they were still rubber-gloved and soapy. He tore the gloves off and tossed them on the kitchen table. “Maybe if you actually used your mouth to make words and were honest with me for once, instead of using conflict avoidance to the point of fucking _nausea-_ ”

At some point Shane had stood up, and the look on his face was cold fury. Ryan wanted to scream and laugh and take a lap around the block when he saw it. The expression was cool, yes, a little closed off, but furious. Furious at _Ryan_. 

Ryan felt like he’d cracked some code, that must be why he now felt tingling warmth flow from the center of his chest to his extremities. That must be why his heart was hammering in his chest. 

“I was willing to have a conversation, Ryan,” Shane said, scooping up his laptop bag. “If you’re just going to berate me, I’m leaving. I’ll see you later.”

Ryan moved without thought as Shane crossed the kitchen and made for the front door. Ryan intercepted him at the shoe rack and planted a hand on the center of his chest, stopping him dead. Shane let out an undignified squawk.

“Get off me,” He huffed, rolling a shoulder away from Ryan’s hands.

“Nope,” Ryan replied. He gave Shane a light shove, making him stumble ungracefully. “Fuck you.”

“Are you actually trying to _fight_ me, Ryan?” Shane asked, incredulous, and he laughed, but Ryan could see how his shoulders were tight and tense. 

“I want to,” Ryan admitted truthfully. He was sick of Shane’s ducking and weaving. He didn’t even really want to hit Shane. He wanted Shane to hit _him_. Ryan was suddenly, desperately fixated on the idea of watching Shane completely fall to pieces and socking him one. 

“Okay well,” Shane pushed his chest against Ryan’s hand, but whether it was an attempt to dislodge the hand or just to annoy him, Ryan wasn’t sure. “I don’t really subscribe to any of that macho shit as you know, Ryan, so-”

Ryan could actually _feel_ his blood heating in his veins, his heartbeat loud in his temple.

“Seriously? Fuck you, you’re so full of shit,” He bit out. 

Why was the frustration and anger making knots low in Ryan’s stomach? Why could he feel a flush working its way up the back of his neck and onto his jaw? His hand on Shane’s solar plexus began to feel more like a caress than a challenge, so he moved it to the side, somewhere in the region of his pec and shoulder, and _oh_ , _okay,_ that wasn’t really any better. 

“What’s with you tonight, huh?” Shane’s voice had dropped low now. Alarm bells.

“You’re what’s with me. You, being a piece of shit, determined to piss me off,” Ryan was whispering, why was he whispering?

Shane just swallowed and shook his head. 

“Come on, Shane.” Ryan gave Shane another light shove, almost experimentally, and Shane’s own hand came up to grab at Ryan’s wrist, tight.

“Quit _pushing_ me, Ryan,” he hissed, and he tried to pull Ryan’s hand down, away from his chest. “I don’t actually want to hurt you.”

Ryan didn’t budge.

“You couldn’t if you tried,” he said, a little breathless. “Hurt me, move me—you couldn’t if you tried.”

What was Ryan saying, now? He felt like his words had bypassed his brain entirely and sprung directly from his gut. 

And Shane—when Ryan looked up, Shane’s eyes were dark and glittering, and his eyebrows were inching toward his hairline, and for the first time since Ryan had started touching him tonight, his mouth was twisted into a smirk, like he had an inkling. Like he knew something that Ryan didn’t. Shane’s hand tightened around his wrist.

Ryan’s heart skipped several beats, and a siren was sounding somewhere. ‘Someone should call this bit off,’ the siren screamed.

Ryan wouldn’t be calling it, though, no way. If Shane wanted out of this situation, he could do it himself. Ryan gave the hand that Shane grasped an experimental tug, and Shane’s grip only tightened again, just becoming painful.

Ryan heard labored breathing, and realized that it was his own. He slowly brought his left hand up to plant alongside the right hand on Shane’s chest, and glanced over Shane’s shoulder—they had backed themselves almost into the wall, and once again Ryan’s body moved before his brain had a chance to slam on the brakes. Ryan shoved Shane again, hard this time, hard enough to send Shane’s back flat into the wall. Hard enough that he felt the huff of air that was forced out of Shane on his own face when he was pulled stumbling into Shane’s chest, propelled by the hand that still gripped his wrist. 

_What the fuck am I doing?_

“I think I specifically asked you to stop pushing me.” Shane’s voice was quiet and deadly and Ryan swallowed against a flood of saliva.

There was a flush that started high on Shane’s cheekbones and spread across the bridge of his nose, and a bead of sweat trickled down his jaw and Ryan was thinking he might lick it off. _What?_

Instead, Ryan brought his hand up slowly to the side of Shane’s head and intercepted the sweat with his thumb. Shane let out a shaking breath. 

“I- Uh, I don’t know wh-” Ryan stuttered, and then Shane was-

Shane was moving his right hand from where it had lain inactive against his side, and he was inching it up Ryan’s back and Ryan was shaking. In his head, the sirens were cacophonous now, and Ryan became dimly aware that he was half-hard. 

“Are you hyperventilating, Ryan?” Shane murmured, and then that huge hand was on the back of Ryan’s head, and his fingers were in Ryan’s hair, and _no_ Ryan wasn’t hyperventilating, because he had straight up stopped breathing. He had stopped breathing, and he was dead. 

“Ah!” A desperate sound left Ryan’s mouth before he could stop it as Shane’s hand clenched in his hair, and Ryan let his head fall back. 

Ryan had stopped wondering what the fuck was going on now. This was definitely not real. This had to be just another sex dream that he would pretend not to have had about his best friend. He had been enraged just a few minutes ago, but it didn’t take much of the remaining blood in his brain for Ryan to cotton to the notion that _perhaps_ some of that had been misdirected.

Interested in a bit of scientific experimentation, Ryan pressed his whole forearm across Shane’s collarbone and angled forward until his hips met Shane’s hips and- _Oh, fuck._

Ryan’s dick had perked its ears and come to the party and so, it seemed, had Shane’s. 

This is how Ryan found himself standing in his entry hall, with his mostly hard dick pressed against Shane’s all-the-way hard dick through four layers of fabric. This is how Ryan went completely mad. 

Shane’s hand gripped Ryan’s hair tighter and drew him closer and he bowed his head until his mouth was pressed close to Ryan’s neck and his breath fanned across Ryan’s pulse. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Ryan breathed, aloud this time. “Fucking- Jesus, _Shane.”_

He was too far gone now, spiraling in his own lust. He placed his thigh between Shane’s legs and honestly, Ryan couldn’t even remember why he was mad. Why was he mad? 

Shane finally released Ryan’s wrist only to bring both his hands to the sides of Ryan’s face.

Ryan met his eyes for what must have been only a few moments, and then Shane was kissing him, _finally_ , _God,_ and rubbing a thumb along his jaw and Ryan was desperately trying to stop himself from moaning directly into Shane’s mouth. 

“Ryan.” Shane pulled back just far enough to breathe out. “ _Ryan_.” 

Ryan slid his tongue across Shane’s lower lip just as Shane’s hips pushed out from the wall to grind into him. Ryan was definitely going to lose the fucking plot now, at the way Shane’s teeth caught on his lip, at the way Shane dropped his hands to spread across Ryan’s back, one spanning high across his shoulder-blade, the other across his lower back. Shane’s hands were huge, so huge, that Ryan felt as if his whole back was covered by that palm and fingers like a slightly damp shroud.

And Ryan’s hands? Ryan’s hands weren’t as huge as Shane’s, but they could be good, he thought, when used correctly. He dropped them to Shane’s belt, suddenly feeling frantic, and desperate to remove any layer between them. He loosened the belt and hurriedly pushed his hand down into Shane’s briefs to grasp, finally, at his dick. 

Shane bucked forward, “ _Fuck!_ ” and Ryan felt out the length of him, hot and tacky at the tip and— _God—_ so sizable. Of course, of course, this lanky, awkward assemblage of limbs would have a cock so long and solid that it made Ryan’s mouth water.

“Is this real? Is this happening?” Ryan asked, voice cracking. Shane laughed wildly, his head falling back to the wall with a thud.

“It’s real.” He considered Ryan through his eyelashes, hips rocking gently into Ryan’s hand. “I’m _really_ \- I want- I hope it’s real.”

Ryan let his head drop onto Shane’s collarbone, bony and almost painful where it pressed into the skin of Ryan’s forehead, and just like how he would imagine Shane’s collarbone would feel. 

“That’s what a dream Shane would say. Or a fatigue-induced hallucination version of Shane.” 

“I resent the implication that I’mnot already your dream Shane.” 

Ryan didn’t bother to respond to that, and instead nosed up Shane’s neck to lick at a pair of moles he hadn’t realised until now had been infuriating him—that he could only reach because Shane was hunched over him—and pulled a firm stroke up the length of Shane, hand still trapped awkwardly inside tight chinos. 

It wasn’t enough, and Ryan didn’t even hesitate to drop to his knees, coax open the chinos and press his face to the fabric of Shane’s underwear. 

“This- is this alright?” Ryan asked, voice muffled obscenely by Shane’s clothed dick. 

“Oh God, Ryan. Yes. Definitely.” In the absence of Ryan’s body, Shane’s hands had come up to grasp into his own hair, pulling the strands until they stood on end, and Ryan wasn’t sure he’d ever seen anything more attractive in his life. 

He fished Shane’s cock out and—

“Jesus _Christ,_ bro,” He whispered. It was one thing to feel that in your hand, and quite another to look it in the eye. Shane was laughing again above him, a kind of desperate, broken laughter, but Ryan was stunned speechless. He pushed Shane’s pants and briefs to his knees and he leaned in without preamble to take the head in his mouth. Shane tasted like sweat and precome and something undefinable that was excruciatingly familiar to Ryan as Shane’s smell, something that made Ryan want to press into Shane’s very pores and never leave. 

High above Ryan, Shane’s chest heaved, and his hands clenched to fists against the wall. The showman in Ryan was conscious of how good this all looked when he was on the receiving end, and he was surprised to realize that he wanted desperately for Shane to tighten his hands and pull his hair and fuck into his throat. Ryan was stunned at his own luridness, but he brought a hand up to cover Shane’s own, larger hand on his head, looking up at him through dark eyelashes. He hoped he was being clear. 

_“_ Christ.”Shane seemed to get the message, grabbing fistfuls of hair and _tightening_. Ryan moaned and frantically palmed at his own dick through his shorts. It wasn’t dignified, but his need to get a hand on himself was so much stronger than his pride tonight. 

Shane was thrusting lightly into Ryan’s mouth now, like he could barely help himself, and Ryan marvelled at the sensation of Shane’s dick—the way it pressed along his tongue to sit at the back of his throat, which constricted around Shane and drew out a broken moan.

_Oh yes,_ Ryan thought. _I know how that feels._

Ryan acknowledged after a moment that he may have been a little overambitious, and he coughed around Shane, struggling not to gag. The firm grip Shane had on Ryan’s hair turned soft, and he smoothed his hands down onto Ryan’s neck. When Shane pulled his dick free from Ryan’s mouth, Ryan was shocked to hear a humiliating whine from his own mouth. 

“God, Ry- I’m sorry.” Shane sunk to his knees, almost level with Ryan’s face now that his ridiculous legs were mostly out of the picture.

Ryan knew how he must look right now; red, wet lips, the purple-red head of his dick just barely sticking out from the top of his shorts. He couldn’t really muster up an ounce of shame about it, though, because Shane was kissing him again. The tone had shifted palpably, Shane’s hands clutching the sides of Ryan’s face gently, apologetic. 

Ryan pulled his head back, “No- you don’t have to-” He was so hoarse. “I _liked_ it, Shane.” 

Shane just ran his hands down Ryan’s back and pressed his mouth into Ryan’s neck, “I know and uh- me too, but I wanted to-” 

Shane pushed Ryan’s shorts and briefs down, and gripped him firmly, without the slightest hesitation. Ryan arched involuntarily further into Shane’s embrace, into his grip.

“God, you’re hard, huh?” Shane said, biting the underside of Ryan’s jaw softly, which _wow_ that was something Ryan didn’t think he would like so much. And then Shane angled his hips and grasped them both together in his hand, and the list of things Ryan wasn’t aware he was into shattered into a million little pieces.

Ryan was pure pleasure brought to life; suddenly every atom of skin that was pressed against Shane buzzed and screamed. Ryan’s entire consciousness zeroed in to where his own dick was pressed alongside Shane’s. Shane, who was long, and heavy, and straight, and not as thick or curved as Ryan. Shane, whose hands easily wrapped ‘round the both of them.

Ryan couldn’t tear his eyes from the image they made; the contrast of Shane’s pale hand with a dusting of fine dark hair against where they were pressed together red and weeping was breathtaking. He must have been staring down for far too long, because Shane made a discontented noise and brought his free hand round to grip Ryan’s chin and wrench it up until their eyes met. 

Ryan thought their cocks pressed together had been an appealing sight, had made his breath catch in his throat, but this— Ryan had seen a lot of things in Shane’s face in the years they’d known each other, but never this.

Shane was staring open-mouthed at him with such frank desire that Ryan almost had to look away. Shane’s eyes were glittering dark in his pale face, which held a rich red flush around his nose, and he was huffing, _squirming_ , and holding unflinching eye contact. Ryan himself was basically a sex zombie by now, coaxed completely out of his mind by Shane fucking Madej. Some impulse for more contact made Ryan lean back, dragging Shane with him, until his back hit the floor and they both shifted ungracefully, arranging their legs, desperate not to lose that perfect sensation.

This was better, Ryan thought, even better than before, because now he could feel Shane’s intention in his weight as it bore down on him. 

If Ryan could be outside of his body at this moment, if he could watch himself from above, what would he look like? Rutting, mostly clothed, against Shane in the entry of his _shared_ apartment, ready to come after just a few moments of his skin dragging against Shane’s. Ryan didn’t have the brainpower just now to imagine the kind of sight the two of them made, but he was willing to bet that it was a spectacle. 

Shane picked up the pace, then, propped up with one arm over Ryan, the other working them both over, pressing them together. It was all way too much, and Ryan was going to scream, or maybe cry. He dropped his head back to the floor, unable to look at Shane for even a moment longer. This turned out to be a mistake, because now Shane was pressing in closer, tucking his head into Ryan’s neck, and now Ryan could hear every breath and moan leave Shane’s mouth and brush Ryan’s ear. Shane was really panting, and every time his swollen head brushed against Ryan’s he whimpered. Ryan turned his head in so his mouth was set against Shane’s ear.

“Are you gonna come, Shane?” He whispered, relishing the way Shane immediately bucked in response. “You- ah- can come, Shane, come on. Are you gonna?”

Shane nodded his head imperceptibly, which Ryan only felt because they were pressed so close together.

When it happened Ryan felt every moment of it, from the way Shane swelled, just slightly, to the broken moans fed straight into Ryan’s ear, and the sudden wetness between them as he spilled over. 

If you’d asked Ryan 20 minutes ago, he would assume that feeling Shane come all over Ryan’s cock and hips and stomach would leave him disgusted, but Ryan was only propelled even further along to his own orgasm. Shane, face red and slack and wondrous, sat back astride Ryan’s thighs after only a moment of recovery, and took up the _most_ punishing pace. Shane pushed Ryan’s shirt up to his pecs and planted one hand there while the other jerked Ryan off like his life depended on it, and all the while he was looking down into Ryan’s face and murmuring indistinct encouragement. It was the hottest thing Ryan had ever experienced. He had been close for so long, so it took barely a minute until he felt himself tip over, coaxed through by Shane, and came forcefully and copiously all over Shane’s hand on his dick, and his own stomach, and also on the hand that pressed into his chest. Also maybe a little on someone’s shoe. 

Ryan wasn’t sure what he had expected—none of this, obviously—but for Shane to immediately press down and catch Ryan in a soft kiss was definitely not it. 

Ryan tried to muster up shock or offense, but in this moment to be kissed thoroughly by Shane in the afterglow felt like everything he’d ever wanted.

Too soon they were extricating themselves from each other, detaching in a hundred little ways, pulling apart. Ryan offered Shane a shower and a spare shirt. He declined the shower, instead using a washcloth in Ryan’s upstairs ensuite, and he accepted the shirt, pulling on an old Buzzfeed merch tee that was too big on Ryan. 

Ryan walked him out, padding after him like a lost duckling, and when Shane dropped a kiss to the top of his head and waved as he left, Ryan felt a wave of something undefinable through his body. It felt like sweetness at first, but it left a bitter taste.

— 

The second Shane was out the door, Ryan began eyeing his phone like it was rigged to explode. He had a long, indulgent shower (The kind that would make Shane sit on his environmentally friendly high-horse and look down his nose at Ryan and _oh,_ that was the wrong train of thought.) and spent almost the entirety of it leaning against the tile and begging his dick to leave him alone when it reacted valiantly to Ryan’s recent memories streaming through his head. By the time Ryan crawled into bed, he remembered that he had actually left his phone on flight mode. He plugged it back in, switched it back over, set it down on the bedside table, and waited. 

It began buzzing almost immediately, though Ryan’s first few glances found mostly tweet mentions and Instagram notifications. Eventually, breaking through the backlog, a message from Shane. Ryan reached for his phone slowly, as if it 

It was a meme, sent about 10 minutes ago while Ryan had still been in the shower, thinking about the way Shane’s dick had slid down the back of his throat like it belonged there.

Ryan dragged a hand down his face. _Focus._

So, a meme: Jurassic Park related, moderately funny, something Ryan had seen on his Twitter feed earlier in the day, which meant Shane had definitely also seen it earlier in the day, which meant- what? He’d saved it and sent it to Ryan as an opener? 

Ryan’s phone buzzed again. Shane, again.

_Home safe. Have a good night!_

“‘Have a _good night’_?” Ryan exclaimed to his empty apartment. “What the fuck does that mean?”

He scrutinized the exclamation mark for three minutes before deciding that this was entirely too much bullshit to be dealing with from Shane, given he had come dramatically all over that selfsame man, downstairs, within this very hour. 

Ryan decided to be direct.

_Have a good night? What the fuck does that mean, dude._

_Uh…_ Typing, typing, typing—Ryan rolled his eyes.

_It means what it says?_

Okay, well, now Ryan was infuriated again, a feeling he was used to associating with Shane, though it used to come with fewer boners. 

_...Okay well,_ Ryan hesitated. Tapped his fingernail on his phone screen

_do we need to talk or w/ever?_ Ryan sent

_I don’t think so,_ came the reply 

_unless you want to._

Well, Ryan didn’t need to if Shane didn’t need to. 

_nah, just thought you were supposed to,_ he sent back.

Shane was typing for a long time after that. Ryan felt his anxiety grow with every minute. He was terrified about what kind of monologue he was about to cop. Maybe a lecture?

Instead, he received,

_Cool_. 

Ryan scoffed. After a minute, his phone pinged again.

_I think we’re probably both stressed out,_ It read, and then another,

_And we needed to work out some tension, right?_

Ryan furrowed his brow, typed _sure._

_Just needed to get it out of our systems,_ Shane replied, and,

_Doesn’t have to be a whole weird thing._

Ryan thought they were probably already well into ‘a whole weird thing territory’, but sure.

_i’ll promise not to be weird if you do,_ he sent. 

_It’s a deal_ , Shane replied instantly. 

Ryan tossed his phone onto the bedspread out of reach and tried to ignore something that crept into his brain and felt an awful lot like sadness.

— 

The last Wednesday in September found them packed once more into Ryan’s kitchen, once more an agenda of endless paperwork and planning and doling out tasks that Ryan couldn’t wait to delegate to an employee the second that became a viable option for him. 

Ryan knew the schedule for Spooky would come up again, but he had decided to just wing it and pray to God that he wouldn’t get a Pavlovian boner in response to any fights that were bound to crop up. 

Except— 

“Sure, sounds like a plan,” Shane had said in response to Ryan’s proposed new 2-day schedule. 

“Looks like you’re all over it,” Shane replied when Ryan talked through a map of the site, and his proposed interview locations.

Even when Ryan handed out his call sheet for the day-of, tighter than any shoot he’d worked before and _so_ risky—full of 3-minute long resets and very little margin of error—even then Shane just studied it, tapping a pen on his jaw and nodding along to Ryan’s explanation. 

“Any… any notes?” Ryan asked, fixing his eyes on Shane over the table, though he was still looking down at the call sheet, brow subtly furrowed.

“Can you email all of this to me?” Steven asked from Ryan’s left. “I can’t see any issues but I wanna have a buddy look over it.”

“Sure,” Ryan replied briskly, eyes still fixed on Shane. “Shane? Any suggestions?”

Shane pursed his lips, tapped his pen twice on the paper. He took a breath and looked for a moment like he had something to say, but then he shook his head. 

“Nope,” He said. “Nothin’.”

“Okay, right, so fuck you.” Ryan pushed up from the table, unwilling to look at Shane’s face for another second. He walked down the hallway. Shane would say he _stormed_ down the hallway, but Ryan was sure he had more dignity than that.

“No, no, I’ll go check on him Steven, it’s okay,” he heard Shane say. Ryan stepped into the bathroom and waited. He hadn’t turned the light on, and Shane laughed when he followed Ryan in.

“You laying an ambush for me, bud?” Shane asked, crossing his arms.

Ryan crossed his arms, too, and didn’t respond. Shane sighed.

“Alright. what have I done?”

“What have you done?” Ryan exclaimed. “You’re being pathetic! You’re like a declawed cat out there, you haven’t told me my ideas suck _once!”_

“What are you talking about?” Shane was looking down at Ryan in the dim light, bug-eyed. “You were furious at me for raising objections last time. So I’m trying to be nice, here, I’m- isn’t this what you wanted?”

“I didn’t mean for you to roll over and play dead,” Ryan replied, exasperated. 

“It- kinda seemed like you did want that, Ryan.” 

“I didn’t want you to just pretend that you believed I could do this, I wanted you to actually _believe that I could do this,_ Christ!”

Ryan’s hand had found Shane’s chest during the exchange, and he looked up at Shane to see a spark in his eyes that Ryan recognized. 

“Oh no,” Ryan warned lowly. “Put your wiles away, Shane, we’re having a conversation.”

“My _wiles_?” Shane laughed. He put a hand on Ryan’s shoulder, stepped in a little closer. “I don’t have wiles, Ryan.”

Ryan stepped in too, despite himself, drew in and up until he was close enough to feel the warmth from Shane’s face on his own.

“Shane, Ryan?” Steven called out from the kitchen.

“I’m trying to tell you how pissed I am, Shane, and you’ve distracted me.” He looked into Shane’s warm eyes. “Wiles are the only explanation.”

“Guys?” Steven called, closer now, from the hallway. “This feels an awful lot like the part in the horror movie where the monster picks off the group one-by-one.”

Ryan looked down at where his hand was fisted in the front of Shane’s shirt, and he decided to gift himself one more moment of this, so he closed the gap and kissed Shane squarely on the mouth.

He took a step back from Shane—who looked a touch shell-shocked, giving the game away entirely—just as Steven reached the ajar door. Though Ryan had put several steps between them, whatever Steven saw made him pause, and his eyes flicked from Ryan to Shane and back again. 

“We got-” Shane cleared his throat, tried again. “Sorry, we got caught up in a lively little discussion about the new IT movie. Did you want in?”

Steven raised his hands, backed out of the room a little, and said, “Not particularly.”

His eyes found Ryan again, and Ryan resisted the urge to shield his face, to hide whatever it was Steven was seeing plainly there. 

“Let’s get back to work, then,” Ryan said, and he pushed past Steven, back toward the brighter lights of the kitchen, where he might feel less seen. 

Shane strode after him, leaving Steven standing in the dim bathroom, and as Ryan walked he felt the very lightest touch of Shane’s fingertips to his lower back. 

“I’m sorry,” Shane said softly as they rounded the corner to the kitchen. Shane’s hand tripped down Ryan’s arm and grasped his fingers for the briefest moment. “I- I’m worried, man, but I do trust you. I trust you.”

Ryan blinked his suddenly stinging eyes and wondered why that felt like the most important thing anyone had ever told him. 

— 

By the time Shane showed up to Knott’s on the brisk, bright fall morning of his Spooky Small Talk shoot, Ryan and the crew had been there for a few hours already. In fact, they’d spent the whole day prior at the park, setting up, running rehearsals, capturing B-roll. Shane had received a message early that morning, just after his alarm. The message notification sprung up while he was scrolling blearily through his Twitter feed, and the preview read,

_Knott’s forever, baby!_

And when Shane tapped into their message stream, he found it was accompanied by a photo of Ryan, a selfie in front of the entrance. The bright yellow paint of the front gate was wrought golden by the pale dawn, and Ryan—doing the _shaka_ , tongue out, collarbones on display—outshone the whole lot. It took Shane four minutes of quiet salivating to realize Matty Real was in the photo, too, with a put-upon grimace that didn’t quite reach his twinkling eyes. 

Shane had rolled onto his back and stared into the crown molding like he could put a hole in it. He was anxious about today, scared of the consequences, eager to have it over with. Most of all, Shane was desperate not to let Ryan down, to be there for him in a way he knew he hadn’t in the last couple of months.

There was perhaps a little less merriment by the time Shane wandered onto the shoot location at the Scary Farm. Shane spotted Ryan first, and recognized immediately that he was teetering on the verge of panic. Shane watched as Ryan wrapped with another guest, as Ryan spun around the site, directing a flurry of activity, liaising with scare actors, reviewing interview questions on his phone, fielding queries from crew and Knott’s workers every other minute.

Shane watched carefully from the outskirts for a while as Ryan worked. There _was_ panic there. Ryan’s face held anxiety and panic and fear, but only in the places that Shane could recognize it; tight jaw, tense shoulders, clenching and unclenching hands. Outwardly, though, he seemed relatively calm, and suddenly Shane realized that he’d been so, _so_ wrong about this production. Ryan’s anxiety and fear wasn’t going to derail this shoot, it was key to the whole operation. Ryan had harnessed his own fear and nervous energy, and he was redirecting it out onto the smoothest production Shane had ever seen. He wanted to kick himself. Years of ghost hunts with this man, and Shane still missed the difference between his real fear, and the nervous energy that made him so effective. 

By the time Ryan spotted him and trotted over, Shane was ready to throw himself on Ryan, to tell him he was brilliant or to grovel or throw Ryan over his shoulder and walk out of the park with him. _Something_.

“Hey,” Ryan said, breathlessly. “Cool, huh?”

Shane wasn’t sure he could even speak, now. He cleared his throat.

“What- Can I help? What do you need?” He asked. Ryan cocked his head, questioning.

“This is… a lot,” Shane clarified, let himself drop a hand onto Ryan’s shoulder. “I’m here. I will do anything you need me to do.”

Ryan grinned wide, eyes so bright and brought his own hand up to cover Shane’s.

“Well, we’re ready for you, big guy. Let’s do this.”

It was the easiest thing in the world to be there, with Ryan, that day. To loom behind him, holding doors and guiding him ‘round corners with the slightest touch to his lower back. Ghosts weren’t real, but if they were, Shane would walk behind Ryan for as long as he asked, just so he never needed to fear what was at his back. 

When Ryan looked up at him in the pale light and smiled wide and said—

“I love you, man.”

Shane hadn’t even had to think about it— 

“I love you too.” 

—Because _God_ , Shane had been saying it all along, forever, even if he’d never been so direct as this. He _loved_ Ryan. It was so clear, now that he’d let it out. It had been this, all along. It had never been anything less than love. Everything he’d done at Ryan’s behest, everything Ryan had done to impress him, every time Shane had gotten two hours sleep in a dingy, freezing ‘haunted’ house, and every time Ryan had woken him in fear; each of these moments and a hundred more, were the purest manifestation of love. Shane’s mouth hurt from smiling.

Ryan walked off, looking faintly embarrassed, but Shane could still see his grin from the side, practically dripping sunshine. Shane was floating, _floating_. It was too perfect, and the pure fall air was filling Shane’s lungs with something like bravery, and Shane was loath to let himself squirm away from this one. 

“What a tender ending!” 

There: acknowledgement. All he could muster, but it was something. This was not a moment he would allow to live and die inside the frame of this shot. Behind the cameras, each member of their crew wore a matching smile, something a little knowing that had Shane scratching the back of his neck self-consciously. 

Shane clapped his hand on Ryan’s shoulder as they wrapped. 

“That was very fine work,” He said, addressing the whole crew, though his hand, solid on Ryan’s shoulder, was directing the praise where he hoped it would be received. “Let’s get this baby packed down, then I think I might owe all of you a beer.”

It was only a moderately excruciating bump-out, with all of them chipper and trading jokes, and pitching in to help. Shane thought he must look fairly pathetic, trailing around after Ryan like a loyal pup as they kept a steady flow of banter. On three separate occasions, Shane found a reason to bend over Ryan and brush his hand to help him with a light rig or camera case.

They wrapped up just as the park was starting to reach its afternoon peak, and Shane trudged out the exit with Ryan and their little crew in tow. Ryan had tried to convince him that for a well-earned beer, the Calico Saloon onsite was their best option. 

“But _Shane,”_ he had whined, hamming it up, standing a hair too close. “The _Saloon_!” 

He wore a grin that told Shane he was a sucker that Ryan could play like a fiddle, and Shane knew they were making a spectacle of themselves in front of the others, but he could barely bring himself to care. 

They drove out, despite Ryan’s protests, away from Buena Park until they hit Koreatown, and a karaoke bar they’d spent a few too many hours in over the years, close to Ryan’s apartment. It was the middle of the afternoon, but that had never fazed the staff here before, and sure enough the place was already heaving with people. Someone was warbling _Santeria_ as they walked through the door. 

Mark begged off after the requisite one round, citing the safe return of their borrowed van and expensive equipment, and TJ peeled off with him, not even bothering to make his excuses anymore. Matty remained, and one hour bled into two, bled into three. Shane blinked back to himself in the midst of butchering a duet of Islands in the Stream, arm-in-arm with Ryan, feeling faintly nauseous.

When Ryan started challenging everyone else in earshot to a Disney sing-off—20 minutes _after_ the bartender told Shane to keep an eye on his short and belligerent friend—Shane pulled the plug and walked Ryan out to the curb. They had linked arms for their duet and hadn’t had an inch of space between them since.

Shane was ordering a Lyft when Ryan stopped dead in his tracks, right in the entrance to the bar. Shane glanced at the bouncer. 

“Come on, Ryan, let’s clear the egress, hm?”

Shane managed to coax him about 8 feet away before Ryan ground to a halt again, and this time when Shane turned back, he was hit full in the face by Ryan’s expression; plaintive, water-eyed in the way he so often got when he was drunk. Shane stepped in close.

“What’s going on down there, Ry?” He asked softly, aware they still in earshot of security and a half-dozen smoking patrons. 

“‘Down there’?” Ryan stuttered, outraged. “Fuck you, dude, _‘down there’._ ”

Shane laughed, stepped a little closer still. “Did you mean it?” Ryan asked. 

“Hm?”

“Tell me you take it back,” Ryan’s stubbornness was the stuff of legends, and Shane had the feeling he was about to be subjected to it, not for the first time. 

“Use your words, Ryan,” He said, and maybe he was trying to needle a little bit. 

“You said you didn’t think I could do it-”

“-Not to get into this again, but I actually didn’t-” Shane stopped himself, held his hands aloft. “Sorry. Go on.”

“You didn’t believe in me, though. Before. And I want you to tell me that you do.”

“You have to know that I do,” they hadn’t stepped apart, not an inch, even as Shane felt the familiar urge to look anywhere other than directly at Ryan’s painfully earnest face.

“I don’t- I need reassurance, though, Shane,” Ryan’s eyes were bright and wet again and Shane would do _anything_ to stop that. 

“I believe in you. More than- I literally- my life savings are riding on you, Ryan, and me, and Steven, and everyone else, but you-” Shane cleared his suddenly tight throat. “You must know that I did it because I knew what _you_ were capable of.”

That hadn’t helped at all; Ryan’s eyes welled and spilled over, and Shane was trying not to panic now; had he really given Ryan this much cause to doubt him? Had he been so risk-averse, so negative, that Ryan truly didn’t know what Shane thought of him? The urge to clasp Ryan’s face in both his hands was overwhelming. 

“-And, I mean, you _did_ do it, didn’t you, Ryan?” Shane had done a Dolly Parton impression for this man. He surely had earned the right to touch Ryan’s face, to touch his palms to those cheeks and let his fingers scrape back through his hair. As soon as he imagined it, Shane was doing it, watching carefully for a reaction. 

“You showed me, huh? I mean, we’ll wait to see how the footage looks, but you appear to have pulled it off without a hitch. 

“Did you ever really doubt yourself? You knew you had it together.”

“No,” Ryan smiled. “But I needed you to know it, too.”

Shane laughed, rubbed a thumb on Ryan’s cheekbone.

“I know it.”

“And the other thing.” Ryan hesitated. “Did you mean that?”

Shane was going to ask for more context, but it was writ large on Ryan’s face. 

“I meant it,” Shane replied, frank. “But you said it first. Did _you_ mean it?” 

“I meant it.” 

They were quite a sight when the Lyft driver pulled up, Shane was sure, pressed together in the gutter. He detached himself, helped Ryan into the car, and closed the door. Ryan had his forehead pressed comically against the window, getting a laugh from Shane, and then the car pulled away.

Shane was bereft, but only for a moment before his phone pinged. A message from Ryan,

_come with next time, Big Guy?_

Shane responded with a string of vaguely obscene emojis, and spent the wait for his own ride watching the app to make sure Ryan was dropped off safe.

— 

They had their chance soon after, on a late October night, after their season 6 wrap party. Shane found himself clambering into the back of a Lyft full of Taco Bell and alcohol and just absolutely filthy with _love_. Ryan was right there with him, and there was no discussion, but they were certainly headed home to Shane’s apartment. 

In the backseat, Ryan was crowding up, draping across the back seat to run fingertips up Shane’s thigh, until he copped a sharp rebuke from the driver about seatbelt safety. 

The next time Shane chanced a look over at him, Ryan’s hand lay palm-up like a dead spider in the middle seat, and maybe Shane had missed some queues in the past, but he wasn’t going to miss this one, so he tangled his fingers in Ryan’s. Shane kept his gaze straight ahead, but the entirety of his awareness had zeroed in on the way Ryan’s fingers fit neatly between his own. 

The remainder of the ride passed in a heady silence, and Shane only hoped for the driver’s sake that the tension wasn’t _quite_ as palpable as it felt. 

Later, a million years later, they were pulling up to Shane’s building, and thanking the driver, and Ryan tripped, giggling, over the curb.

Shane’s vision swam in the bright safety light of his apartment building’s hallway, where he fumbled with his keys. The cold night had numbed his fingers, and he was belatedly coming to realize that he was _completely_ hammered.

The alcohol was a physical companion in his body, now that he had taken pause enough to appreciate it. It sat behind his eyeballs, blurring his vision. It was underfoot, making his gait feel unnatural and dangerous. 

Shane propped his door open, and swung his head to look for Ryan, who was hanging back, one hand braced on the painted brick wall of the hallway. 

“You okay?” Shane held out his hand. “Coming in, or…?”

Ryan appeared to steel himself, took a big, unsteady step forward and grabbed at Shane’s hand. He was as drunk as Shane, that much was obvious. 

Something desperate that had been roiling inside of Shane—something that had been alive, and overturning tables in the vicinity of his gut since they had made eye contact and silently slipped away from the party—stilled. Shane paused in the door for a moment, looked down at where Ryan had stepped in close, chest-to-chest, with their clasped hands trapped between. 

Ryan’s eyes were bright, and his cheeks were flushed, but there was a twist to his mouth. It told Shane they had _both_ come to understand that they were far too drunk tonight for whatever they had intended to do. 

The barest tug got them inside Shane’s apartment, and the door closed behind them with a clunk. 

Shane leant back against the wall to push off his shoes. Drunk as he was, he’d forgotten about Ryan’s hand, still clasped in his. Drunk as Ryan was, he went stumbling into Shane’s chest, and again they found themselves pressed together, there in the dim light, amongst Shane’s shoes and coats.

“I think I need to go sit down,” Ryan said, failing utterly to move away from Shane. 

Shane, though- Shane had decided that he was going to be the responsible one, and he untangled his hand from Ryan’s to pat his shoulders. 

“Come on then,” he said, but it was hard, so hard, to relinquish the warmth of Ryan’s body against his own, even more so when Ryan burrowed in, tucked his feet right in alongside Shane’s. Shane chucked him under the chin.

“Let’s pop you down on the couch.”

Ryan dropped his head down to Shane’s chest with a giggle, muttered something incoherent. 

“Hm?” Shane stroked a hand down the back of Ryan’s head, because his heart was asking, and because he could. “What was that?”

Ryan lifted his head just enough to free his words. “I said, your breath smells like Cheesy Gordita Crunch.” 

Shane scoffed. “If I smell like Cheesy Gordita Crunch, then so do you,” 

Ryan pulled back with alarming speed and agility for someone so very drunk, and fixed Shane with an absolutely spine-chilling look, dark and intense. Shane swallowed; he wasn’t totally sure what was going on here, but Ryan was grasping his biceps and pushing himself up onto his toes, and Shane was perfectly happy to be dragged along in the wake of Ryan Bergara, as ever. 

Ryan settled his mouth on Shane’s and, yeah. That was Cheesy Gordita Crunch, for sure.

He could have made out with Ryan by his front door for eternity, and Shane was starting to think he should avoid entry halls entirely. He pulled back instead, and walked Ryan over to his couch—a short walk in his small apartment—and lowered them down. Ryan made a noise of protest, but curled up immediately; the drunker of the two of them, and the more exhausted after his schedule these last few months. Shane felt a pang of regret, but he, too, was drunk and tired. He could have crawled into bed, but he was loath to leave Ryan here alone, so he lifted his feet up to the couch, and laid his head near Ryan’s, and that was that.

-

Their production meeting the next morning was at 11am, a fact that Shane remembered approximately 40 minutes prior to the start of said meeting as he awoke, wedged into the back of his couch with a mouthful of Ryan Bergara’s hair. They’d passed out on the sectional, head-to-head, with Ryan curled up on the chaise, and Shane on the length. 

Shane had fallen asleep first, with his hand cradling Ryan’s head. He knew he’d fallen asleep first, because the very last thing he could recall was the feeling of Ryan sifting idly through his hair, occasionally running his blunt fingernails along his scalp. Even now, Ryan’s hand remained cupped around the back of Shane’s head, and Shane… Shane needed to deal with real life, though what he wanted was to pretend that nothing existed outside of this apartment. 

He extricated his phone—wedged under Ryan’s shoulder and down to 10% battery—and shot off a text to their poor, unsuspecting co-founder. 

_Hey, Steven, I’m running a little late, can we push the meeting back to like 1130? Sorry._

_Hey Shane. we can do that. wrap party get a little crazy?_

Shane grimaced, tapped out a reply, 

_Ha ha, kind of. Thanks again, I’ll be there ASAP._

_No probs. you owe me a coffee tho. i’d tell you to bring Ryan one too, but i have a feeling he’ll be rocking up with you._

Not so poor and unsuspecting, then. Shane felt a tendril of guilt curling through him at their deception thus far. Then again, what deception? Was Shane expected to tell Steven—Steven, who was famously uncomfortable any form of lewdness, that he’d… what? Accidentally jerked Ryan off, arguably in a fit of pique? That it had failed to diffuse the sexual tension, that they’d been since been circling each other. That Shane, at least, was desperate to have a repeat performance, that he’d put a hand on himself night after night, imagining what more could await them, what other noises he could wrench from Ryan with hands and mouth and-

Shane wasn’t sure Steven would want to know any of that. _Shane_ barely wanted to know it.

One thing was certain—Steven deserved better than to have the two men to whom he was most fatefully, inextricably linked sneaking around and being tardy to meetings so they could run their hands through each others’ hair. 

Shane shook Ryan’s shoulder gently, and received for his trouble a soft, disgruntled sound that was so familiar it made Shane’s heart clench. 

“Ryan.” Shane wasn’t sure there was any point in even trying to rouse Ryan when he was this far gone, so Shane got up instead. He was picking through his cupboards for something that could approximate breakfast to Ryan’s standards when the man himself walked in and flopped into the nearest chair. 

“What time is it?” His voice was pure gravel and it rocketed Shane back to that late summer night months earlier, to what had wrecked Ryan’s voice the first time. Shane turned his back, shifted left to right in an effort to dispel the rapidly evolving situation in his jeans. 

“It’s 10.30,” He replied, and then to defuse Ryan’s panic, “I’ve already messaged Steven, it’s okay. He’s pushing the meeting back to 11.30 for us.”

When he received no reply, Shane chanced a look back at Ryan, and found himself being studied from his own kitchen table. 

“‘For us’, huh?” 

Shane shrugged, and he had to turn back to fiddle idly with a packet of oatmeal. He was definitely wearing a humiliating flush right now, and he felt weary and _ancient_. 

“Steven’s not an idiot,” He said to the oatmeal.

“I know that,” Ryan replied. The air shifted, and Shane knew that if he turned around he’d have a chest-, arm-, and mouthful of Bergara. His feet and hips twitched as if to turn, his body always ready to betray his brain when it came to Ryan.

“Does that bother you? That he probably knows?” Ryan asked, and yeah, Shane would take that bait. He turned around.

“Knows _what,_ though, Ryan?” Sure enough, Shane had to tip his chin down to look Ryan in the eye, he was standing so close. 

“Come on, Shane,” Ryan replied, though he grinned dazzlingly, a debilitating smile that made Shane want to do anything he asked, and a few things he hadn’t yet thought to ask. 

“Okay Ryan,” Shane said, emboldened, bringing his hand up to rest lightly on Ryan’s nape. “Am I bothered that Steven Lim probably knows that I know what you look like when you come, and have thought about nothing else for months? 

“That sometimes I wake up and it’s like I can _see_ you kneeling in front of me with my cock in your mouth? That I want that again, and I want more- whatever you’ll give, and have wanted only that for so long?”

Shane drew even close still, and continued with his mouth almost on Ryan’s— 

“Is that what you want me to say, Ryan? That I’m not bothered that Steven Lim probably knows how much I want you, and need you, and _love_ you?”

Shane closed the gap between their mouths, and kissed Ryan, thoroughly, properly, finally unburdened by his own stifled emotions.

When he pulled back, Ryan was pink and a touch cross-eyed. 

“Well, I seriously doubt he knows _all_ of that, dude.”

-

They did, in fact, turn up to the meeting bearing both coffees and bagels for all, and with three minutes to spare. To his credit, Steven barely spared them a glance, launching straight into their meeting—an update on potential series sponsorships.

Shane should have known better than to create a villain of Steven in his head, to imagine him as some kind of severe, sexless scold, rather than his _business partner_ , and a kind, generous friend. Steven had only ever done what was best for the three of them, for their partnership. Shane spent the rest of the meeting sinking into his chair, shamefaced. He was going to owe Steven about ten favors, and the truth. 

If Shane got anything done that Thursday that was usable, he’d be very surprised. He spent the entire day looking at the same After Effects file and thinking about things he could do to bring that attractive light pink flush to Ryan’s face again. 

At 4pm, after Shane had to use his meditation app for the third time to banish a frustratingly persistent erection, Shane had had enough. He was going to be completely useless today, no matter what. 

“I’m going home,” He declared to the room, and stood up. Given no one had said anything for a good 20 minutes, Shane realized he looked a little odd. Anthony blinked at him. 

“I’m… Goodbye everybody, I’m going home,” he tried again. “Goodbye Steven, Anthony. Ryan, I’m going to… go home now. And finish this. At home.” 

Ryan was shaking his head imperceptibly and pursing his lips to contain laughter.

“Okay, bud.”

Shane squared his shoulders and walked out of the office, no doubt with all eyes on him. 

He lurked in the car park for 15 minutes, and was just starting to think that he had somehow not been obvious enough when the office door opened and Ryan came barreling out. 

“Sorry!” Ryan said as he jogged closer. “I would have been out sooner, but Steven spent 10 minutes making me look at two identical graphics for Homemade and tell me which one I like better and why.”

Shane laughed, opened his arms for Ryan to step into.

“Okay, so maybe he’s a little mad,” Shane said, closing his arms tight around Ryan. “Home?”

Ryan smiled up at Shane, eyes warm and bright and perfect. 

“Home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/allredpen/) if you so wish.


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